Unforgettable: The Bold Flavors of Paula Wolfert's Renegade Life

One cannot write about Mediterranean cuisine (or culinary icons
in general) and forego mentioning the incomparable Paula
Wolfert who has written nine titles
devoted to international cooking and culture. The Cooking of the Eastern
Mediterranean is tops in my collection and I have to
confess I have all her books (and maybe some
duplicates). Paula Wolfert is a force of nature and one must
have her brilliance in their cooking arsenal.

Unforgettable The Bold Flavors of Paula Wolfert's
Renegade Life by Emily Thelin and her team of culinary
greatness is ready to ship. 1,112
backers pledged $91,465 to help bring this project
to life on Kickstarter and I am proud to be one of
them. I was privileged to see the digital copy of this title and it
is beautifully perfect and so deserving of every accolade it will
receive - this book will surely be the highlight of award season.
I'm counting the days until I can hold the actual book in my
hand.

Q: I, just one of countless others, am excited about the
upcoming release of UNFORGETTABLE: Bold Flavors from a Renegade
Life. I know you worked with the incomparable Paula Wolfert and
have traveled with her. Can you share a little bit of what it is
like to work and travel to Morocco with such an
expert? (Photo right: 1973, Morocco: Paula shops
at a market outside Tangier. From Unforgettable Paula
website.)

A: Thank you so much, and thank you for the opportunity to do
this Q&A! Absolutely: The phrase "mind-blowing" gets tossed
around a lot these days, but traveling with Paula in Marrakech was
just that. It's rare to watch a hero at work in the field and have
reality exceed expectations. Paula has so many gifts as a recipe
explorer: she's able to form instant yet enduring bonds with good
cooks she meets, often in unexpected settings. A story I share in
the book, one of the best cooks we met on the trip, Paula met
through a woman she encountered at the Marrakech airport, who'd
helped her recover her lost bank card. They remain in touch today.
But she also matches that openness with unrelenting high standards,
which not even the most romantic setting can sway. One story that
didn't make it into the text, I'll never forget visiting a wizened
old spice merchant in his cave-like warehouse, tucked away off the
souks of the medina. I was enchanted, until Paula broke the spell
to sternly upbraid him (in a mix of Arabic and French) for storing
his saffron in clear plastic bags, instead of airtight and
light-proof metal tins. What shocked me the most, I assumed the
merchant would take offense, but her high standards made him
respect her the more. He ended up offering her a bunch of spices on
the house, though she insisted on paying.

Q: How did the Unforgettable Project start up and did
you expect the response you received with your kickstarter
campaign?

The idea came from our photographer, Eric Wolfinger, when he and
I were assigned to report on Paula's dementia diagnosis for The
Washington Post in October 2013. When I confided that traditional
publishers were turning down my proposal for her biography, saying
that Paula's time had passed, he suggested we Kickstart it and
offered to take the pictures. Once Andrea Nguyen
and Toni Tajima offered to help us, we laid a plan. We were
cautiously optimistic we would be able to meet our initial goal of
$45,000 - though we toyed with the idea of cutting the goal to as
little as $35,000. We were absolutely gobsmacked to raise the
$45,000 in just four days, and ultimately more than double it,
raising just over $91,000. We never dared hope for that level of
success.

Q: As you know, I am the Cookbook Promotions Manager for
Eat Your Books - and review hundreds of cookbooks along with my
work at The Cookbook Junkies. Paula Wolfert's books are magical and
recommended highly - which of her books is your favorite and have
you made all the recipes from this new title?

One of the hardest challenges of the book was choosing the
recipes! As you point out, there are literally thousands of gems to
choose from: Paula published 9 books, each with between 100
and 200 recipes. That's a very big pool. I was lucky to use some of
the Kickstarter proceeds to hire an incredible assistant, Nathalie
Christian, who described our process in a fantastic
blog post for her cooking school. We started by taking
nominations, both from Paula and others we trust, then cooked
through about 20 recipes per book, to whittle down to our 50+
selections, 5 or so per book. It was agonizing making the final
calls. I often had to remind myself that our readers could still go
buy her books to cook the rest!

Q: We all love Paula and hope that she is doing well.
This project is such a powerful one focusing on food and memories.
Was Paula an integral part in the selection of recipes? I remember
seeing photos of Paula in her kitchen surrounded by tagines - and
that's one that will stay in my memory. Is she still cooking and
enjoying her beautiful kitchen?

Paula was absolutely an integral part of the recipe selection.
We had a lot of fun cooking for her and seeing what memories came
up. Sometimes none did, but we learned to live with it. She has cut
back on her cooking and her clay pots, but she still uses her
dishwasher-safe tagines almost every day. Now she loves to cook
meals to fuel her brain, loaded with vegetables and her favorite
proteins, whether wild-caught salmon, grass-fed beef, or pastured
eggs. Just today she emailed me about how excited she was to
discover Lior Lev Sercarz' inspiring new book, The Spice Companion.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to share about
this project?

Having worked so hard on the narrative for the last five years,
and on the photographs, recipes, and book design the last three
years, we are all very excited to share the final results. We have
attempted to create a new kind of book - a hybrid cookbook and
biography, where the recipes are as compelling as her adventure
stories.

Special thanks to Emily Thelin for her time and her
passion for this memorable book along with her talented team. Thank
you to Paula Wolfert who has provided a world of cooking
enthusiasts and cookbook lovers with her knowledge and enthusiasm -
everytime I see a tagine I think of her brilliance.

So pleased that the book will soon be available. This was a tremendous undertaking, and I'm grateful to all the Kickstarter backers and promoters, as well as Emily, Nathalie, Eric, and Paula herself. "Her time has passed," publishers? Maybe it's yours that has...

"Unforgettable" is wonderful. My copy arrived Tuesday and I finished reading it, cover to cover, this morning. It was a privilege to learn so much more about one of my culinary heroes. Thank you to Emily Thelin, Eric Wolfinger, Andrea Nguyen, Toni Tajima, and Paula Wolfert for giving us this gem of a book.